Bobby Weir can recall only a few glimpses of the head-on crash that nearly killed him on a snowy highway north of Kitimat.
He can feel his Mercury Cougar slipping and starting to drift. And he sees a big pickup right in front of his windshield. But the impact isn’t there, just a blank.
Next, he sees himself with his skin on fire, and again, nothing. Somehow he’s tossed into a pile of cool snow, and the memory fades away.
Weir’s car and a Toyota Tundra hit head-on just after 6 p.m. on Dec. 5.
The driver of the Toyota was taken to hospital and released.
Weir suffered severe burns and was flown to Vancouver General Hospital.
MAJOR SKIN GRAFTS
His next memory is waking up in a bed, bones in his legs and face shattered, and wondering where he was. Below his knee, the flesh had burned down to the bone.
He would soon learn that three heroic ironworkers had pulled him from his burning car, doused him with snow, and encouraged him to hold on until paramedics arrived.
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On Dec. 13 he underwent major skin-grafting work in 12 hours of surgery in the VGH burn unit, and doctors treated his facial fractures.
In the following days he learned that friends and co-workers in Kitimat, his rescuers’ co-workers, and readers of The Province who were inspired by his story were raising money to help pay his medical expenses and get him back on his feet.
On Christmas Day he did that, literally, gaining enough energy and muscle strength to stand for the first time after the crash.
He walked with a pusher for 100 meters before leaving the burn unit. And in the following weeks he was transferred to G.F. Strong clinic in Vancouver for physio work, building up the power to walk with a cane.
FLYING HOME
On Thursday afternoon Weir, 24, left G.F. Strong to fly back to Kitimat. He was upbeat while saying goodbye to well-wishers at the clinic, and looking forward to a rousing welcome from family and friends.
After a tough three years for his family – in which his father, grandmother and an uncle all died – there would be plenty of joy.
“I’m really happy to be alive,” he told The Province. “We had a couple of deaths in the family in the past few years, and we didn’t need another one.”
HERO RESCUERS
It was John Tyler, a 56-year-old ironworker, who saw flames up the road on the dark highway and ran to the burning car, risking his life along with his son Jake and co-worker Dale Hession to pull Weir from the wreck.
Weir’s passenger, Kevin Dawson, who had pulled himself free, shovelled snow on to the rescuers as they leaned into the flames.
Tyler, who had recently come to B.C. from Ontario to work, felt that the dangerous rescue was somehow meant to happen.
“As you go through your life, sometimes you think, ‘What’s the purpose?’” he said. “And I think I came from Ontario to save a life.”
In January, Hession, who is from Vancouver, visited Weir several times in hospital.
“Dale, he’s a really nice guy,” Weir said. “I’m really glad they were there.”
Friends from the SuperValu market in Kitimat, where Weir is a well-liked worker, have completed a home renovation makeover at his place, giving him another reason to look forward to the homecoming.
He expects to return to work after about five months of physio sessions, and will use some of the funds raised for his recovery to pay bills in the meantime.
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